


Orion’s Belt

by InsertSthMeaningful



Category: Slow West (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Fix-It of Sorts, Jay Cavendish Is an Eccentric Head-In-The-Clouds and Rose and Silas Love It, Multi, Polyamory, Stargazing, bannedtogetherbingo2020, corrupts youth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26778346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful
Summary: Rose, Silas and Jay take the Swedish siblings stargazing.
Relationships: Jay Cavendish/Rose Ross/Silas Selleck
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5
Collections: Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Orion’s Belt

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fill for the BannedTogetherBingo2020 prompt "Corrupts Youth" - not as bloody as the work which was originally banned for that reason, but can you imagine a more youth-corrupting (or tempting) thing than being brought up in the Wild West by three polyamorous outlaws?

“But _why_ does Orion have a belt, pappa?”

Jay hid his grin in the smooth locks of Astrid’s hair and blew a raspberry onto the crown of her head. In his arms, the young Swedish girl squirmed and squealed.

“Shh, quiet,” Jay whispered, glancing furtively at Silas leaning into his left side with Oscar in his arms, both fast asleep. “I won’t tell you why if you wake them.”

To his right, Rose sniggered, but said nothing and instead got up from their makeshift nest of horse blankets and saddles to go poke at the fire, feeding it with twigs from the dead tree in which’s shade they had pitched their camp. Safe for the moon and the stars twinkling overhead, it was their only source of light - so far from civilisation, they didn’t have to worry about attracting any bloodthirsty bandits and outlaws.

Astrid fell still, solemnly staring into the flames. Then, she turned her head and whispered into Jay’s ear, “ _Why_ does Orion have a _belt_?”

“To keep his sword in a scabbard,” Jay whispered right back, before he took her chin and turned her head to gaze upwards. He pointed. “See that band of stars just below his belt? That’s his sword, a mighty blade to cut giants and monsters in two. But he cannae hold it in his hands, because there–” With his trigger finger, he drew two shapes into the night sky, one to Orion’s left and one to Orion’s right- “he’s already holdin’ his club and his shield, so he can defend the Earth and all who would live on it.”

“Ooh.” Astrid gaped in wide-eyed amazement. “Defend from who?”

“From all that is cosmical and evil and wants to take little children away from their parents.” Jay pinched the girl’s cheek, smiling when she caught his finger and mimicked biting it. “Or their parents from them.”

Both froze when Silas sighed in his sleep and shifted to press his head further into the crook between Jay’s shoulder and chin, eyelashes fluttering. The leather of their saddles piled on top of each other dug into Jay’s tensed back and his right leg was falling asleep from Astrid straddling it for so long, but then, Silas’ breathing evened out and everything was fine and lovely again.

Astrid turned her head from where she had been eyeing her brother’s peacefully slumbering form cautiously. “And what about the moon?” she bored on quietly. “What’s on the moon?”

Rose, back from the campfire to slip under the covers and nestle into Jay’s right side, huffed with mild disdain. Jay knew she didn’t like the stories he made up to tell the children – in her eyes, they were too far from the harsh reality they would have to face in the West.

But every now and then, even the beautiful, stunning and incredibly smart Rose Ross needed some dreamed-up fantasies to hold onto. So, she said nothing, just put her head on Jay’s shoulder and listened with Astrid as he told his favourite story about the railway to the moon and the men who lived on the barren silver-rock orbiting Earth.

It had been Jay’s idea, saddling the horses to take the children stargazing on a whim. Rose, ever the most pragmatic among them, had proposed they pack provisions and spend the night while they were at it, and even Silas – composed, aloof Silas Selleck – had nodded and smiled quietly as though a memory of happier days had flown back to him.

They had set up camp under a dead maple tree which was standing lonely and isolated in the vastness of the windswept prairie. Silas had sung, fired up by the children’s joyous laughter and Rose’s smile and Jay’s soft, promising hands, and when dusk had fallen, it had been Rose’s turn to entertain them. Fingers crooked in front of the roaring fire, she had made shadow-birds and darkness-rabbits and night-wolves dance across the lush prairie floor, devouring Oscar’s toes or pecking at Jay’s elbows.

It was the happiest eve they had spent in a long time.

Now, Jay felt Rose shift on his shoulder. In his arms, Astrid’s eyes had slipped shut, and he could feel a certain wetness seep through his long johns’ left shoulder.

“Do you think I should tell Silas that he drools in his sleep?” he asked Rose in a whisper.

“Nae. He would be embarrassed and sulky for days.” A drowsy smile painted the woman’s voice all shades of lovely when she leaned up to buss a kiss against his jaw. “But I do think ye should stop telling the young’uns those stories. Makes them all dreamy and head-in-the-clouds, like you. Corrupts their youth.”

“Considering all they’ve seen in their young lives,” Jay jabbed back mildly, “I think we’ve already corrupted them, anyway.”

Rose sighed, and Jay knew that just like him, she remembered - a hot, shimmering day in the West. Blood-streaked floorboards and a heart which beat on miraculously despite the bullet buried in its muscle. Silas limping in on them, pleading for Jay to stay awake with tears in his eyes, and Rose beckoning to the two strangely pale-eyed and flaxen-haired children who had been taken in by the bounty hunters.

Bodies burning on the field outside, their ashes rendering the soil fertile and strong.

“Maybe they’re already rotten to the core,” Jay mused. “They’ve seen me with Silas. They’ve seen you with Silas, and you with me, and us three together. There’s no way we could’ve lived like this back home.” And to emphasise his point, he craned his neck and placed a gentle kiss onto Silas’ forehead.

The Irish bounty hunter murmured softly in his sleep and tightened his arms around Oscar. Jay thought his heart might burst from between his ribs at the sight.

Rose shook her head. “This is not rottenness. This… this is liberty. Freedom. What life would be like for all human beings were it not for those small men with their small minds in their big parliaments.”

Over their heads, the stars in Orion’s belt twinkled – pinpricks of light dwarfed by the all-encompassing fabric of the night.

Jay looked at Rose, and she smiled that smile for which he had braved an ocean, a continent and death itself. And deep, deep down, he knew that nothing she had ever said was truer than this.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are very much appreciated :) especially seeing as this is a rare pair supreme.


End file.
